


See I've Had To Burn Your Kingdom Down

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [32]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gallifrey, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: "Seven devils in my houseSee they were there when I woke up this morningI'll be dead before the day is done."After visiting Gallifrey, the Doctor loses herself to the darkness.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Take Me To The Stars [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139201
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	See I've Had To Burn Your Kingdom Down

**Author's Note:**

> From aprilmaclean's prompt:
> 
> _The Doc being sad™️ about Gallifrey and not being sure how much about herself to tell the Fam and Clara comforting her??_
> 
> and professorsaber's prompt:
> 
> _Thirteen seeks out Clara after learning the Master destroyed Gallifrey._

“Geo-activated. If you're seeing this, you've been to Gallifrey. When I said someone did that, obviously I meant I did. I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us, the founding fathers of Gallifrey. Everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think, you or I. The whole existence of our species built on the lie of the Timeless Child. Do you see it? It's buried deep in all our memories. In our identity. I'd tell you more, but... but why would I make it easy for you? It wasn't for me.”

The words ring in the Doctor’s ears as she clutches the console with numb resignation, unable to process the horrors that she’d heard and seen seconds before. She doesn’t want to close her eyes, not even to blink, because each time she does so she can still see it all with damning clarity; the ruins of the Citadel, which had once gleamed so magnificently in the light of Gallifrey’s twin suns, and the buildings surrounding it turned to rubble. She hadn’t needed to see the rest of the planet to know that it would be similarly destroyed; that Arcadia would now be nothing more than a desolate ruin; the Continent of Wild Endeavour reduced to scorched earth, and the Mountains of Solace and Solitude now devoid of the tiny, brightly-coloured settlements she had so enjoyed visiting as a child. Now, devastation reigns.

The Master would have been thorough. Not an inch of their planet would have been allowed to survive unscathed, and she wonders, detachedly, whether she counts as part of that; whether she is a further abomination who needs to be exorcised from the universe; scrubbed from the face of history to finish what the Master has so bloody-mindedly started in his disavowal of their people and all that they stand – stood – for. No, she supposes; she is needed instead to bear witness to it all and she is there to be hurt by it all – the genocide, the destruction, the wanton fury – because without her, the chaos has no purpose. The entire, murderous destruction of Gallifrey has been carefully designed to hurt her, and hurt her it has.

The Time Lords had been her people, and they had their flaws, certainly – as warmongers, as a species with superiority complexes, and as cruel entities hell-bent on asserting their dominance over the rest of the universe – but they had been _her_ people; her race. They had caused her great pain over the millennia, but there had still been, at the end of it all, the prospect, dread, and relief of returning home to a place where regeneration was not some uncommon, freakish thing to be gaped at or exploited; where she was not a freak of nature who understood things and thought in ways that other races considered abnormal or admirable; where time travel was the norm, rather than a myth that she could so enjoy proving to be a reality. She had loathed her time spent on Gallifrey – from her childhood to her schooldays to her daring escape – and she had loathed all that her people stood for, but it had been reassuring to know that should she ever need their help, she could make that journey and seek it. Comforting to know that they were there, along with her entire history, intertwined together in a rich web of culture and memory that was now gone forever; thousands of millennia of knowledge wiped out in what? A single afternoon? She wonders, despite herself, what the Master’s weapon of choice had been, and prays only that it will have spared the inhabitants of her planet from suffering.

Her people had become pariahs, hiding at the end of the universe lest those they hurt or provoked come seeking revenge; and yet now, in their deaths, she will have to fight to keep herself from elevating them to the level of martyrs – they had not been good people, and that much had been evident in their treatment of her, of the Master, and of the ones they had both cared about. The red-raw pain of what they had done to Clara is still fresh in her mind, and she thinks too of the tiny, vulnerable little boy, her friend, that had been led away from her to the Untempered Schism, and the broken young man who had returned, unable to understand or make sense of the world around him. The little boy who had been made into a weapon by their race, and who had now, for the second time, proved their final, fatal undoing. As the Master had once sacrificed himself to banish the Time Lords back to Gallifrey, he had now achieved the ultimate revenge; he had obliterated them and expunged their presence from this universe and every other, and the pain of it makes her want to weep. There’s a dull, throbbing ache in her chest, and she places her hand against her sternum, feeling the treacherous double-beat of her hearts and knowing that she is now, bar one exception, the only bearer of such a heartbeat, and will remain that way for an eternity.

The TARDIS lands with a barely-audible thump, and as she realises where she is and precisely what that means, the relief of it robs her of the last of her strength, and she slumps to the floor, her legs splayed as she allows herself to tilt slowly backwards, and she stares up at the ceiling with dispassionate disinterest. She doesn’t know how long she lays there for, but when the doors of the ship open and there’s the sound of footsteps, she can’t bring herself to move. The aching sensation from her chest has radiated throughout her entire being, and the weight of her grief seems so burdensome that she is unsure how she will ever right herself again. She is faintly aware that her body, ever-helpful, has robbed her of sensation in the parts of her extremities which she is laying on, and that she hasn’t the energy to turn her head towards the approaching _tap tap tap_ of heels.

“Doctor?” Clara calls, her voice low and thick with worry. That alone would usually be enough to elicit a response from her; to encourage her to reassure her partner that all was well and she was unafflicted by any perceived burden. Not today, though. Today, she needs the right to fall apart. Today, she yearns for the solace found in not being alone.

“Doctor?” Clara says again, before circling the console and letting out a yelp of panic as she catches sight of the Time Lady’s prone form. “What… Doctor?!”

Clara falls to her knees at her side and immediately reaches for the hand that isn’t trapped underneath her own torso, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“What happened?” Clara asks, her tone abruptly measured and gentle, although the Doctor can hear the panic that undercuts each word. Normally, that would cut her like a knife; normally she would feel a swooping sense of guilt at knowing that she was hurting her partner, and yet now there is nothing. Her people are gone; her people are gone; how can she be expected to demonstrate compassion when her oldest friend has failed to do the same? “Are you hurt?”

The Doctor isn’t aware she’s crying until Clara reaches over and swipes her sleeve across her cheeks. The skin there feels raw and sensitive, and she wonders how long she was in the vortex for; wonders how long she wept silently for Gallifrey before the ship took pity on her and brought her here. She’s both grateful for and furious about the intervention; while she yearns for Clara’s companionship, she also craves the sweet sting of isolation, and the right to wallow in her grief with absolute dedication. She wants to let it consume her; wants to mourn her people with an appropriate degree of solemnity.

“Doctor?” Clara says again, apparently concerned as the Doctor’s continued silence stretches into the ether. This is uncommon for her, the Doctor knows; Clara and the team are used to her unceasing prattle, and the sudden and unwarranted silence must seem frighteningly oppressive in its obviousness. “Are you hurt?”

The Doctor can’t form the words. It’s like she can’t remember how to; like something in her brain has forgotten the sequence to make her mouth lurch into motion and form the sounds that she usually finds so effortlessly. Instead she just blinks at Clara dumbly, and her companion’s panic tangibly spikes at the lack of verbal response.

“Right,” Clara says decisively, turning her head away, but not before the Doctor has seen a single tear slip from her partner’s eye. She’s scaring Clara; she’s hurting the person she cares about; and were this any other day, that would be enough to horrify her into motion. But now? Now she still can’t find the words, and so she simply cooperates in agreeable silence as Clara helps her to her feet and keeps hold of her as the numbness of her own limbs makes itself known in their weakness, and she sways like a tree in the wind as her legs refuse to bear her weight.

“Easy, now,” Clara whispers, wrapping both arms around her waist and holding her steady until she feels able to walk. She wants to lean into the embrace and yet she wants Clara to let go of her, although she knows that there’s the likelihood of falling lest she be released from her steadying grasp. She craves physical contact, yes, but there’s something so inherently wrong about this situation; she yearns, suddenly, for the soft embrace of her mother, against all the rules of the nursery. A familiar sensation, accompanied with a warm double-heartbeat; two beings of equal status, rather than a Time Lord stood in the uncertain arms of an ageless, technically-lifeless being that had been borne from the fragile mortality of Earth and the perverted science of Gallifrey. “Easy. It’s alright. You’re alright.”

She guides the Doctor along the corridors to her bedroom and then helps her out of her coat before arranging her into a sitting position on the side of the bed, kneeling to undo the Time Lady’s boots with the utmost tenderness. She prises off each shoe and sets it neatly to one side with a sense of care that is almost palpable, and then carefully undoes the Doctor’s braces and removes them, rolling them up before helping the Time Lady into bed and arranging the duvet around her with care. Her doubts and agonies of moments before dissipate, and there is something so soothingly simple and child-like in allowing herself to be ministered to that the Doctor closes her eyes for a second, but she is jolted from her reverie by a warm wetness on her face, and she lets out a yelp of horror and scrabbles away from it, curling up and wrapping her arms around her knees.

“It’s just…” Clara is staring down at her with a pained expression, and it’s then that the Doctor notices the warm flannel in her hand and realises that her partner was merely seeking to remove some of the saline sting from her cheeks. She feels a sudden, deadened sting of guilt as Clara sets the washcloth down on the side and surreptitiously wipes her eyes, before turned back to the Doctor with a neutral expression.

“Do you want me here?” she asks in a strangled tone, and the Doctor doesn’t know how to begin to explain the thoughts that are racing through her mind. “Or do you want me to go?”

She could push Clara away, she supposes; reject her on account of her species, and on account of having little understanding of what it means to find herself one of the sole survivors of a genocide. And yet she wants her; craves her; needs that physical and emotional reassurance, and so the Doctor holds her arms up like an infant, craving physical contact, and Clara visibly relaxes. The Doctor watches with a faint sense of fondness as Clara shrugs off her own coat and kicks off her own shoes before climbing into bed and allowing the Doctor to curl up across her lap, the Doctor resting her head on her partner’s shoulder and feeling some of the tension leave her body. There’s the usual, lurching oddity of Clara’s lack of a heartbeat, and the Doctor feels an unexpected stab of bitter relief that at the very least, Clara will never have to go back to Trap Street. She will never be taken away from her; will never have to return to face her death.

She smiles then, just a little. The tiniest upturning of her mouth, unaccompanied by any light reaching her eyes, but, nonetheless… a small smile. A small crumb of comfort.

She doesn’t know how long she lays in Clara’s arms in mute silence, contemplating the mass murder of her people by her oldest friend. She doesn’t know how long she mourns for each and every one of them, wondering if at least they had the mercy of a good, painless death, although somehow she doubts it – she had seen the aftermath of the flames, and she knows herself the agony that comes with meeting one’s fate in fire. She doesn’t know how long she spends counting each and every Time Lord on Gallifrey, wondering what their names had been, or their stories, and thinking of the little children who would have been killed in their beds or as they played; that thought nearly makes her physically sick, and she begins to shake so violently that Clara can only hold her and murmur soothing words, and wrap the duvet around her all the more tightly. She doesn’t know how long she spends feeling as though both of her hearts have been punctured, wondering what happened to the decades in which she had tried to show Missy another path; wondering how they could have meant nothing when her oldest friend had seemed, at last, to understand redemption and the importance of conscience; to show remorse and to want to make amends for her previous crimes. All of that work and effort and time; all of those conversations and embraces and promises; all of it for nought.

She finally, after what feels like an eternity, finds the strength to say:

“It’s gone.”

Clara, to her credit, does not ask what. She does not press, or try to make eye contact, or anything else that would have proved too overwhelming. She only waits, silently and patiently, for her partner to continue, and for that the Doctor is grateful.

“Gallifrey is gone.”

“Oh,” Clara says softly, and the small sound underpins so much that the Doctor begins to cry again, tears rolling down her cheeks as she continues to speak in the same flat, expressionless monotone. She can barely find the words to explain what she needs to say; to attempt to accompany those words with emotion would be too exhausting to consider.

“And it was him.”

Clara doesn’t need to ask who. She already knows.

Her grip on the Doctor tightens, and she begins to rock her gently from side to side, as you would with a very small child. She doesn’t question the level of grief; doesn’t ask why the Doctor is so affected by the loss of the people who treated her so abysmally and hurt her in so many ways. She simply sits, and holds, and rocks, and presses kisses to the Doctor’s temple. She doesn’t bother with asinine words of comfort that mean nothing, or meaningless platitudes such as ‘everything will be alright,’ because she knows that it will not. She simply holds, and rocks, and kisses. Holds, and rocks, and kisses.

When the crying finally comes to an end, Clara speaks again.

“Do you want to do something?” she says quietly, one of her hands settling on the back of the Doctor’s neck, stroking soothing patterns with her thumb. Her skin is both blessedly and torturously warm, and the Doctor leans into the contact, closing her eyes and losing herself to the sensation of Clara’s skin moving across her own. “To remember them?”

“How can I?” the Doctor whispers, tears leaking from her closed eyes and spilling down her cheeks as she realises that even in this, she has failed her people. Even in their final hour, she cannot even commemorate them as befits them. “The Flowers of Remembrance burned with them.”

Clara falls silent for several seconds, before suggesting tentatively:

“We could make a memorial?”

“No. People would only gloat, and it would prove much too dangerous for me. The Daleks would have a field day, and they’d come down on me like a ton of bricks. I’ve got to…” she swallows thickly. “I’ve got to stay alive. I’ve got to keep their memory alive.”

“We could do something in here?” Clara wonders aloud. “Something personal, like a… I don’t know, like a shrine or something?”

“Maybe,” the Doctor says, loathing the fact that such a conversation is necessary, but appreciating Clara’s tentative efforts at ensuring that the memory of her people is kept burning. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” Clara says soothingly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “For now, I’m here. And I’ve got you.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor whispers, before closing her eyes and losing herself to her grief once again.


End file.
